Electricity rates jumping in 2011

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Think you’re paying a lot for your electricity now? Just wait until 2011.

This week, San Francisco-based PG&E filed paperwork with the California Public Utilities Commission to increase gas rates by 5.3 percent and electric rates by 6.7 percent -- for a total of 6.4 percent hike in the total bill. The rate hike was first reported by the San Francisco Business Times.

The company argued they need the rate increase to raise another billion dollars in revenue for that year.

Rates would be increased more for big energy users and less for smaller ones. In an example given by the paperwork, a customer who today pays $74.13 for electricity would only pay about $2.37 more in 2011 -- about a 3 percent increase. But a customer who today pays $164.15 for electricity would pay $181.59 starting Jan. 1, 2011 -- a hike of a whopping 10.6 percent.

Rates could rise further in the following two years, if the CPUC grants PG&E’s request for an “attrition adjustment” that would raise the company’s revenue by $275 million in 2012 and $343 million in 2013.